The Understudy
by McFadden
Summary: The Libertine: John Wilmot, Second Earl of Rochester has been asked to help aide George with his new play. What happens when all he wants is the understudy?


Look who came back for more… This could be a one-shot or a chapter, you decide. I just wanted to test out the Libertine fan base before I go to write anything more on it. Hopefully my lovely ladies will have stuck around. And now on with the show...

McFadden-

**The Understudy**

**By: McFadden-**

Wilmot glanced around the backstage area in idle boredom._ How the hell did he always end up here?_ If he wasn't in such a friendly mood, he would've left by now. But no, he had promised Georgie that he would come to help him stage his love-child play for the aristocratic lichen that frequented the theater.

As per usual, George was no where to be found as of yet and John was impressed more with the lint on his frockcoat than he was with the happenings on stage. The laughably termed _woman_ that George picked for the antagonistic lead was no doubt a singular aggressive influence on other parts of the body rather than his friend's brain. Surely she possessed no passion for the role that his poor friend had written. Lucy was her name, and she was nothing but a common whore with more talent for opening and closing her dreadful mouth for passing pleasures than it was for reciting prose. She was nearly falling out of her seams with curves and, in Rochester's point of view, was not fit to even look upon the stage on which she stood. If there was anything that got on John's nerves, it was a poor actor. _Just wait till he found that dwarf who had envisioned this atrocity…_

Sliding past the folds of the curtains Rochester descended upon the tawdry woman with a disproving glare.

"I had expected you to be better than that, Lucy."

One painted brow lifted on her heavily powdered face. Not the most attractive of looks considering she wasn't naturally pale to begin with. With a voice that screeched like owls, it would seem that she was highly irritated too. Though Johnny didn't know, or care, why.

"Oh? Well sadly as it seems, I am rather devoid of any expectations of you."

_A usual remark…considering he had come into her acquaintance in the past… _But he hadn't come here to talk or to train an amateur in the arts of Shakespeare. Lucy was just an easy pull that required no pretence. John made a low hum in the back of his throat as he ticked towards her. With a bat of lashes, she turned on her charm and sashayed towards the Earl, thinking of getting a quick turn of the skirt, but he was not so easily amused. As she closed in, he held her at bay with the handle of his cane.

"Sour tongues are not my favorite I'm afraid. I have more pressing interests to pursue. Where's the limp idiot that let you run loose onstage?"

The knot on her forehead did much to prove that she wasn't the beauty she thought she was, and her wavering snarl at his comment only made her uglier. She was soon to make her own acrid reply when a voice called out from the orchestra pit.

"You're late…"

The Earl nodded once and removed his hat casting a catlike glance to the corner. Indeed it was George in full wig and regalia. Rochester scoffed.

"Me? You slag, you're the one who's been hold out on me for half a day! Please don't tell me I've been waiting for you most of the morning in this playwright's hell because you couldn't decide which lace to coif your neck with today."

George gave him a conceited smile in return and walked up the few steps to greet him with an embrace. Lucy, not grabbing attention from either man, haughtily walked offstage to sulk.

"If you're so insistent Johnny, it was my dear sister that has caused my tardiness. After much shameless begging on my part, I appointed her as my consultant in this dribble of mine. She is to be Lucy's understudy."

"Ah! How sentimental of you George. However, I do not see your little sister anywhere in sight."

George grinned and pulled the cuffs of his jacket.

"I'm not all that certain you would even recognize Sophie now, she's nearly 20. In all probability, the lamb has taken to the rafters to be out of public view. You of anyone should know the shyness that plagued her as a child. I'm afraid some of that lingers still; although she _has_ shown particular blooming on the stage."

The Earl's private memories were ripped open and bloody with the fresh wound of an image of a girl in a satin slip much too old for the age she was. Her mouth stained red from the strawberries she'd eaten. The way she licked the juice off of her wrist… He would've stolen her blindly from her brother had he been the person he was now. Rochester's brow rose in quiet inquisition, before a faint leering smirk formed on his lips.

"Dually noted."

George was quick on his heels.

"I'm going to dismiss that glare for playfulness, and trust that you would do nothing shameful to her. She gets embarrassed easily. I will not have her flush because of some critical mark on your behalf."

"You aim to cut me too quickly. I do not seek to criticize your precious Sophie. I promise to be a good boy…although I shall miss the chance of making her flush."

Wilmot pushed his cane aside and sat down in one of the many lavish velvet theater seats to observe the theater from a better angle. Taking the seat next to him, George sighed.

"I suppose you fashion her to be like a doll…you haven't seen her since she was 14 John."

"And a lovely, more bearable 14 she was at that. I never understood how the two of you were born with the same blood in your veins."

George shot him a sharp look.

"Leave it Johnny…"

Slightly surprised by the warning lilt Maybe he was giving too much away. Rochester resigned himself to lean back into the seat and just remained silent until a scream unlike no other peeled out of the throat of Lucy. Trampling onstage her face hot and angry, and brandishing a copy of the script in her hands, she set her daggers on George.

"You gave away my part to your mousey sibling?!"

Anger flashed briefly on the shorter man's face before he calmly regained his self to explain.

"No need to throw insults, Luce. It's merely practice. She's only learning the lines if perchance you fell ill or decided you did not want the part."

She pointed her finger at him and huffed.

"Well I do want this part George, and you promised it to me! Once you're finished playing with your sister, I'll be waiting to show you true talent."

The Earl, not able to keep a straight face, laughed openly at the exchange.

"You whore; the only thing you're useful for is drunken fuck."

Lucy's mouth dropped open but she was completely void of any retorts. Throwing the script down near the stage lamps, she just stormed off the stage and right out of the theater. Rochester looked at George and merely gave him a boyish grin.

"I wasn't that fond of her. I meant to tell you earlier."

George slowly nursed the ache now growing in his temples and sighed heavily in resignation before jerking to attention at the loud yell of his friend.

"Sophia!!"

Upon hearing her name from an unfamiliar voice, a young girl appeared under a veil of dark hair from her perch at the edges of the wings. Unfolding her legs, she stood tall for a moment, only to kneel and retrieve the discarded script from the light on the lamp and peek beseechingly at the man who called for her.

John could plainly see the remembered beauty of a girl he once sought out to immortalize as a nymphet amongst his better written works. There she was, grown into the beauty that haunted her face as a child, and all the more lovely for it. She met his stare with one of her own, deciphering that the man in front of her had more of a bawdy disposition that that of the recently met Billy Downs, but she still remembered him vividly as though from dreams. But despite his countenance, it was the ageless face that gave away his true identity. George spoke up on behalf of their shared silence.

"I take it that you may recognize the Earl of Rochester…"

She barely nodded, but she did speak gently.

"Yes, I do. It's been quite some time."

Straight-back and proper was something new to be seen by anyone sharing George's surname. John would have imagined that all the good traits were passed to one child and all the debauched genes had resided in the other, he just didn't know how right he was to assume. But oh was she perfect and just ripe for corruption.

"Indeed it has my little Dove. I hope you will dismiss all of those surely awful stories you brother has undoubtedly told you about me."

She raised her chin and looked him all too knowingly in the eyes.

"Not without reason to believe otherwise. Georgie, if you'd like for me to practice now, I can do so without this script…"

A smile ticked the corner of George's mouth before it passed on as he nodded. John's eyes just glittered brightly at the prospect of her wit. Glancing down at the script at the toe of her boots, Sophia spoke again.

"Shall I rehearse it on my own or with another actor just as it was written?"

John tilted his head to the side and whispered softly so that only George could hear him.

"Pity, she should have to waste such good manners on you…or me."

With that Rochester stood up, and with the aide of his cane, he made his way onto the stage and stood beside Sophia, who was cautiously reading his features with naturally meek eyes. As he had done for many years, George just sat in silence whenever John rose to approach the stage. He simply waited to see what genius was to come from it.

The Earl learned over to take inventory of the freshly formed young woman in front of him. He came close enough to cause discomfort and as he watched her flesh prick under his gaze he dropped his voice a few octaves and asked quietly.

"How are you ever going to play the antagonist if you are so timid of those in your personal space? If I am in yours, then by antagonistic nature, you should _always_ be in mine."

Said with an entendre, he waited eagerly for the rumored and deeply missed flush to creep up her neck and into her cheeks, but to his disappointment, it didn't show so readily. Only a quiet remark of observation was made.

"The scene has yet to begin, my Lord."

Taken aback with her quick reply, he could do no more than to gesture for her to begin the scene.

"My apologies dear heart; do begin…"

Suddenly, it was as though the very air changed around him. He felt her every breath and every move. Not because he wanted to, but because she made him. Sophia invaded his space and his senses just as he instructed and the Earl wasn't so sure that he was comfortable with the turn around. As she began, her translations of Georgie's words were like needles on a spindle; Ready to lash out and would pierce anyone who was in range to hear them

Sophia turned to face him and as she did so, she circled behind him and played the scene. John felt her soft fingers come round and enclose gently on his throat. Fingers pressed and moving with a delicious pressure, she whispered lowly.

"A noose around a pale neck, my love bestows…The light and feathery kiss of death, in time, my fate, does owe."

Rochester leaned himself further into her hands chancing to be the prey for the first time and almost losing his voice to the moment, in the prospect of saying the next lines.

"But oh how it goes…so easy to swallow the loss of the lamb. If pain be bright in her eyes and her fingers long and fair…I cannot then foresee a more befitting start, to such rapturous despair."

A shudder ran through him as he sensed her so close to his face, her breath in his hair, the sweet smell of lavender that encased her presence. The atmosphere was enough to forget what little sanity and restrain that he possessed. His voice betrayed him as it hitched within the following lines.

"For this feverish thing cannot live, in spite of what strangers may see. With a lasting imposition of this sparrow in my hand does give such a trusting naivety on which wolves descend."

_Damn George for writing this play! Where did he get the stroke of brilliance to cast this unknowing nymphet?_ He opened his eye at the opportune moment of meeting her motley green ones. She played the part, and she was playing it fully. It was as though, John himself was acting through her. The smoldering look, the tempting angling of the lips as they breathed the final words over his own, they were present and aptly accounted for.

"Therein lays the burden of my acquaintance. For the pack can only hold off on a scent for so long. A gentleman has only one line to cross before patience is spent. And with the gnashing of teeth…an innocent meeting can go so wrong."

A slight tilt of the hips, and she was his. Her mouth claimed him in the scene-ending kiss. The velvet insides of her mouth were more than any drug he could pay for. It was as though she knew all these years how he desired her even in the beginning of youth. Surely now, with just one taste, the demons were sure to run rampant on his conscience. But, what little of that he possessed could wait. Right now, by all account, she was just as wicked as he. The fog lifted and with hazy eyes, Wilmot looked out to see the sole audience member, clapping in a standing ovation, at their public display. There, his friend, Georgie, _her brother_, the only witness to their little indiscretion. Looking into the nymphets eyes John saw the same thoughts reflected…Indeed, they were both corrupted.

**The End**


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